Prodigious Duggar clan stumps for Ken Cuccinelli

VIRGINIA BEACH — The Duggar family, reality TV stars and icons for social conservatives across the country, joined Chesapeake minister E.W. Jackson on Tuesday to support his run for lieutenant governor and the campaigns of his Republican running mates.

Jim Bob and Michelle Duggar and most of their 19 children rolled onto the campus of Regent University on a bus adorned with the face of Jackson on one side and that of Attorney General and gubernatorial hopeful Ken Cuccinelli II on the other.

Duggar called the duo "statesmen" who he said would not if elected be beholden to special interests thanks to their deeply held religious beliefs.

"They're not trying to please men; they're trying to please God," he said.

Duggar, whose family lives in Northwest Arkansas and stars in TLC's 19 Kids and Counting, said he met with Cuccinelli at an event earlier Tuesday in Richmond.

He told a crowd of about 75 people that the nation would have its eyes trained on Virginia on Nov. 5 and it was important for conservatives to make an impact.

He later told reporters that he likes Cuccinelli and Jackson because they both advocate for low taxes and small government and against abortion and the Affordable Care Act.

But in addition to being a surrogate for the Republican ticket, Duggar represents a target for Democrats seeking to portray the GOP candidates as extreme.

As the Duggar bus wheeled through Virginia, Democrats highlighted in a series of news releases comments Duggar made at the Values Voter Summit in Washington, D.C., Saturday.

Duggar recounted a story former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee told about taking his daughter to the site of a concentration camp in Europe.

Huckabee's daughter, Duggar said, asked her father why no one stopped the Nazis' systematic slaughtering of Jews.

"You know that's where we're at in our nation," Duggar said, drawing a comparison before urging his audience to take a more active role in country's political system

"You guys are the army that can go out and impact America," he said.

"It is shocking that Cuccinelli would accept the support of a man who last week publicly compared the United States to Nazi Germany and the Holocaust," said McAuliffe's campaign spokesman Josh Schwerin.

"Ken Cuccinelli needs to immediately ask his surrogate to leave Virginia," Schwerin continued. "Mr. Duggar's divisive, hurtful, and extreme rhetoric has no place in this campaign for Governor."

Asked about his earlier decision to employ the holocaust metaphor Duggar did not back down.

"Let me clarify," he said.

"We have since 1973 (when Roe v. Wade was decided) had 55 million abortions, so what we have going on is a baby holocaust," Duggar said.

The event was put on by the Family Research Council. The group's political action committee is also backing attorney general candidate State Sen. Mark Obenshain, R-Harrisonburg, according to spokesman J.P. Duffy.

It also featured a fiery speech from Jackson, who said voters face a choice that's as stark as what Americans patriots faced in 1775.

He said Lord Dunmore, the last royal governor of Virginia, at the time "put out an arrest warrant out on our House of Burgesses."

This, Jackson said, prompted Patrick Henry to mount an armed resistance to the British crown.

"I don't think Mark (Obenshain), Ken (Cuccinelli) or I are in any danger of being arrested or being hanged," he said, "but I do think the choice is as stark."